Colorblind
by lovelyinherbones
Summary: Looking between them, her past and her present, her pain and her happiness, she felt the earth give out beneath her. AU
1. Colorblind

_Yeah...don't exactly know what I'm doing starting another fic. Don't ask me. I just really like what I have so far with this one. So...I don't own Grey's Anatomy. This is set at the end of "Who's Zoomin' Who?" Uhmm...what else...yeah. I think that's it. Please review! More reviews mean I update faster! What can I say, I'm a review whore._

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Prologue

Colorblind

"Long day," he said as she walked up, his tiredness too intense to really form any more words than those said.

"Yeah," she said in agreement, her happiness to see him alone, (almost) outside of work beaming off of her face in the form of a small smirk.

"Somewhere out there is a steak with your name on it," he continued, a smirk of his own playing across his handsome features, "And maybe a bottle of wine."

"This is why I keep you around," she teased, as though everytime she saw him, a small flurry of breathlessness didn't erupt in the pit of her stomach.

"So we need to talk," he said heavily as he finished packing up his things.

"Wine first, talk later."

"Are you trying to get me drunk and take advantage of me?" he said, mock concern and shock raising in his voice.

She giggled, the warm noise making him feel heady and as though everything around him was swimming, except for her.

"I think I like this rules thing," she said, and the agreement in his happy smile could not have been more profound if he had shouted it from the rooftops.

Suddenly, she felt the blood freeze in her veins and the breath clutch in her throat as she saw the head full of red hair cross the lobby, attached to the tall, well-dressed body.

"Oh my god," she breathed, her voice a hoarse whisper, "Simon. _What_ are you doing here?"

"Well," he said, as his leather loafer-laiden feet came to a halt in front of them, his blue eyes glowing with mischief, "If you had bothered to answer any one of my phone calls, you might know," he finished, casting a suspicious and trouble-making glance towards Derek. "And you are?"

Derek, indignant, titled his chin upwards in a gesture of superiority, "Derek Shepherd. Head of Neurosurgery. Can I help you?"

"Ahhh," Simon said, a devilish smirk crossing his handsome features, "Then you must be the hot shot that's been screwing my wife."

Looking between them, her past and her present, her pain and her happiness, she felt the earth give out beneath her.


	2. Choux Pastry Heart

Chapter 1

Choux Pastry Heart

Derek's mouth hung open slightly, and a hurt breath escaped between the gap in his lips, as though he had been punch in the stomach with the fist of heartbreak. He had never felt this way before.

So, he fled. He picked up his briefcase and strode out purposefully, set on making himself ok, so he would never have to feel that achingly painful feeling again. He never wanted to feel _anything_ ever again. He wouldn't look back and he wouldn't regret anything. Being betrayed this deeply would teach him to never trust someone the way he had trusted her.

"Derek!" she cried, as she came after him, quickening her pace to match his broken, striding one.

"Go back into the hospital, Meredith," he said, not turning to look into her pleading eyes, a warning tone hushing the usual gentleness and strongness of his voice, "Go back to your husband."

Each word stung like a barb in her side, only making the desperation in her run more rampant.

"Derek, would you listen to me!?" she pleaded, only a few paces behind him, and the aching tone in her voice finally caused him to turn around.

"No," he said, the angry fire in his eyes burning her skin, and she began to rethink her decision to run after him, "I am done listening to you. I don't want to hear any more of your lies."

"Derek, I know how you feel..." she began, desperate to make him see it her way before he turned and left her.

"No, I have a feeling you don't," he spat, "Because if you did, you would turn around. You would turn around and go back into the hospital and never. Speak to me. Again."

He finished with a spitting tone and an icy glare, turning around and finally, too shocked to do anything else, Meredith let him walk away.

"Meredith," she heard a strong voice behind her, and she felt her blood turn to ice.

"Simon," she said, whipping around, "You need to leave. Right now. Go back to Buffalo."

He acted astonished, as though he had done nothing wrong to deserve this treatment. But Meredith knew. She still had nightmares about that night that now seemed so far in her past. She could never forget.

"Meredith," he said, his voice a condescending tone one might take with an uncooperative three year-old, "I came out here for a reason. I won't be leaving without you."

In that moment, Meredith could not decide which emotion in her should take control of her heart - the anger and fear she felt from his unexpected appearance in Seattle, her safe haven, or the incredible emptiness she suddenly felt from the loss of the one person she ever could have maybe loved.

"No," was all the answer she had for him, and she turned and walked away as fast as she possibly could, trying not to arouse suspicion from a group of passing nurses.

Meredith had nothing left to do except get into her car and drive the short, incredibly familiar distance across the street. She climbed feebly out, as though she were battered and broken (which she was), as well as incredibly old and jaded (which she felt).

She stepped slowly into the bar, hoping to find the only solaces she had left - alcohol and her friends.

Unfortunately, she would only find one of the two. Izzie sat at the bar, angrily staring into the bottom of a beer - Meredith had never witnessed her drink anything other than cocktails and chardonnay. This was new. Apparently, this was betrayed Izzie.

"Well, look who it is," she spat, not looking up, but seeming to know on instinct that it was Meredith who had stumbled into the bar. "Dr. McMarried."

"Wha..." Meredith began, not understanding of how Izzie knew of something that had happened mere minutes ago, but she was cut off.

"Oh, you of all people should know that the gossip around here spreads faster than the syph," she explained, waiving a set of pale fingers towards the same group of poorly dressed nurses that had passed her in the parking lot at the other end of the bar, drinking cosmopolitans and trying to look more like their drinks than they actually were.

"Izzie..." Meredith tried, not quite sure what to say.

"Oh, you know what Mer?" Izzie snapped, highly intolerant of whatever she had to say, "Just...don't. Because I am sick and tired of you. I mean, really, I was almost ok with you screwing Shepherd for some hot sex and good surgeries. Really, I was, because if the opportunity ever presented intself - which I doubt it will, since you've now broken Dr. Shepherd's spirit - I can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing. But you are _married_. As in, 'till death do us part.

"Derek is a _good_ man. Your friends are _good people_. And you didn't think it a good idea to tell anyone that you were eternally betrothed?"

"Izzie!" Meredith broke in, trying to convince one of her best friends that she, in fact, was not the one at fault here.

"No," Izzie cut her off one last time, too furious as she put her coat on to realize that the bill she was slamming on the counter was worth far more than what her tab cost her, "It's fine. Really, it's ok. Just don't come crying to me about the guy you're sleeping with _next_ week."

For the second time that night, Meredith stood quiet and contemplative as Izzie disappeared through the door and into the navy, misty night.

She felt alone.

--

_Ok, so my rambling may even be longer than the chapter itself. So, the whole point of this chapter was just to set up the tone for the next few. Everyone's pretty much furious with Meredith for not disclosing the fact that she's married - the point of Izzie and Izzie alone yelling at her instead of any of the other interns is that Izzie is probably the nicest out of the bunch, except maybe George (but George would be upset anyways since he's in love with Meredith), and if **she** blew up at Meredith, after supposedly sort of going to another level in her friendship with Meredith when she found out about Derek in the first place, it would be pretty intense...yeah, that didn't exactly make sense, but whatever._

_And the whole, Derek running away, Meredith following suit thing may have happened a little fast, but I kind just wanted to get it out of the way. This isn't the best thing I've ever written, but it had to happen._

_Ok, thanks, and remember **more reviews means quicker updates.**_


	3. Shelter From The Storm

_All I have to say is that **reviews** equal **updates.** I got a great group of reviews for the prologue and chapters 1 and 2, but if it's only 5 people reading, I doubt the story will carry on much longer. Thanks! Oh yeah...I'm pretty proud of this chapter, even though it's still not 100 to my own personal standards...**any and all** thoughts are greatly appreciated, criticism included. Thanks again!_

Chapter 3

Shelter From The Storm

--

It was late. She sat huddled in a corner of wall near the Chief's office, on the edge of the large balcony, her knees pulled up underneath her chin and her eyes glowing with an exhausted pain that had seemed to become omnipresent within her lately. The rain streamed down the seemingly never ending window before her, trailing down in rivulets, every once in awhile getting caught on a single crevice in the glass and getting lost amongst its mates. Somehow, over looking the busy and unsleeping streets of Seattle, a sense of contemplative peace had come to rest in the belly of her distress. The tiredness that should have been residing in its place hadn't visited her weary and welcoming mind in two weeks, not allowing her the blissful escape of sleep.

Luckily, after that night, she had not heard from Simon, so she didn't know whether or not he was still in Seattle, and didn't care. But since then, her world had been silent. Well, figuratively, at least.

It seemed that every person she knew had a specific and totally unrelenting reason so be angry with her. Izzie had not spoken to her outside of work and asking her to buy cream of tartar at the grocers, and George was sullen and quiet, presumably since he now figured that he had two superior men to defeat in the sick and twisted race he had engaged himself in for her affections. Cristina was more sarcastic and griping than normal, her bitter remarks actually stinging Meredith for the first time since she met her. Even Alex, the resident manwhore, had lost the small amount of rugged, yet amiable friendliness that he had developed with Meredith.

Derek...Derek was another story. All week, even if Meredith had given a stellar presentation and earned an undeniable right to scrub in on a spectacular neurosurgery, the case would inevitably be given to another intern. Whereas Bailey would usually argue that Derek should keep his personal business out of the hospital and allow Meredith to do her job and learn, she would just cast the younger woman a both pitying and scolding glance, and carry on with her own work.

So, she had quickly learned to keep to herself, even though the secrets she was holding deep within herself would undoubtedly exonerate her from this excommunication from her life that she had been served.

A set of familiar footsteps began to ring down the hallway behind her, and she realized that even though it was four in the morning, Bailey expected her to work twenty-four seven.

As she wrapped her long fingers around the cold railing above her to hoist herself up, the stout, pretty woman appeared before Meredith, an exhausted expression mirrored on her face as well.

"You don't have to get up, Grey," Bailey said softly and uncharacteristically, "I'm not royalty."

Meredith offered her no response, just a feeble nod, as Bailey surprisingly slid down to the floor beside her. She suddenly realized from earlier, when she had ventured down to study the OR board, that her boss must have just returned from her grueling 14-hour surgery. According to the silence that enfolded them, it was not a successful one.

Unsure of herself, Meredith suddenly stumbled over herself and blurted out, "Dr. Bailey, can I ask for your advice?"

Thinking for a moment, she replied, "Well, it depends on whether or not you want my honest opinion." Only waiting for a small nod from Meredith, she said, "Then I suppose so."

With a heaving sigh, she began, "I don't have anything anymore...I mean, my friends aren't speaking to me and neither is Derek. I don't have anything left, you know? I don't know what to do..." she trailed off, and Bailey, sensing there was more to this slightly random rambling of sorts, kept quiet and waited for the young woman to continue, "I've been thinking about moving back to Boston. I mean...I haven't been there in practically ten years, but it was nice...when I was there, it was nice. And no one there knows me. No one knows about my husband and boyfriend and..." she barely caught herself in time, almost slipping on the edge of saying 'mother,' "And...no one knows my name. A fresh start, right?" Having had her eyes glued anywhere except for Bailey, Meredith finally looked up to see an unexpected and yet comforting look of sympathy residing on her hardened and kind features.

Not knowing what else to say, Bailey spoke softly, giving her a warm pat on her arm, "You'll be ok, Meredith. You'll be ok."

--

After her near-meltdown in the hallway with Bailey, Meredith spent the day aimlessly filling out charts and labs in the dungeon-like basement hallway, the boring time only punctuated by the occasional and hardly satisfactory glance or grunt from a fellow intern as they sought out the elusive Fig Newtons that seemed to disappear from every vending machine above the first floor within thirty minutes of being restocked. Every once in awhile, a random nurse or volunteer would mercilessly come to visit her with another stack of black binders, waiting in a dubious and unsteady stack to torture her for at least twenty minutes a piece.

At long last, the clock ticked 8 PM and she darted to the locker room and out to her car before she would have to face the disapproving and betrayed looks from her peers and bosses alike. Somehow, she had become the bad guy, when she in fact, was the victim here.

After all of the things Simon, her Satanic hopefully soon-to-be ex-husband had done to her, she was the one suffering for it now. She had tried numerous times in the first few days after the incident to explain the situation to someone, to anyone who would listen, but every time, a fake pager would erupt or a continuous stream of, "Ohhh, I have to go..." would pour from their mouths. Eventually she gave up, figuring that she got whatever she deserved, for not disclosing this vital information.

Too distracted with digging her enigmatic keys out of the bottomless pit of a tote bag she carried, she didn't notice the unfamiliar car in her driveway, nor the red-head sitting on her front porch.

"Simon," she said as she followed the path to her front door, her tone much the same as the one she had held the first night he showed up in Seattle, "What are you doing here?"

"I came to apologize," he replied, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, "And to take you home with me," he paused before continuing, "You don't belong here Meredith."

Meredith, too angry to think of anything clever, said, "Your apologies mean nothing, and I am staying right where I am."

"Now...that's where you're wrong," he said, standing up to take a few paces towards her, and suddenly Meredith was thrown back into a harsh memory of the night she left.

--

"_Simon?" she said, a steady river of tears cascading around the rims of her eyelashes, blurring the sight of a tall, voluptuous, brunette woman mounted on top of her husband, and in her bed none the less._

"_MEREDITH!" he said, the shock of her coming home early from her interview in Seattle clearly portrayed in his strained voice. He roughly shoved the mysterious woman to the side, not really paying attention as she cried out from the loss of his warmth._

_Meredith said nothing. She turned and walked down the hall, extracting a suitcase from the hallway linen closet._

_--_

"You're going to go inside, pack your things, and say goodbye to your friends," he said, his low and condescending tone familiar from both the night he showed up and the night she left.

--

"_Meredith," he said, and she was suddenly very clear and level-headed. For weeks, she had suspected. She was never one to forgive and forget, and she promised herself that if she ever found out for sure, if she knew that he was cheating on her, she would leave. She planned on keeping that promise. " I swear it's not what it looks like," he pleaded, his eyebrows furrowing into an expression that, months ago, would have made her weak in the knees, but now only made her nauseous._

"_Really?" she said as she continued to pack her things, astonished at his stupidity and audacity, "Did I not just find you in the throes with a random whore? Were you not fucking a woman other than your wife?" When he didn't reply, she said, "Hmm? Are you going to answer me?"_

"_Meredith, I swear, it was only a one-time thing..." he tried, taking a different approach, to appeal to the forgiving side of his wife._

"_I don't care if it was a one-time thing, or if you've been screwing her since before we were even married," she yelled, as she finished throwing her clothes and almost all of her belongings, save random trinkets she had kept from their relationship, into a massive suitcase, "I want a divorce," she spat, trying to end the conversation then and there. What happened next - she did not expect._

_--_

"Simon," she said, trying to capture some of the level-headedness that had been bestowed upon her on that fateful night, "I think you should leave. And I don't think you should come back." She began to slowly edge around him so that her back was now turned towards the front door of the house, hopefully giving her more opportunity to flee than she had before. It wouldn't matter where she was standing, though - what was going to happen next had been inevitable since the day they had met.

--

"_No you don't," he said, his face suddenly an angry mask that mirrored her own._

"_What?" she said, her voice a shocked, hoarse whisper. He had never acted like this to her, or anyone for that matter._

"_Unpack your things, you're not going anywhere," he growled. Things began to escalate, and the next thing Meredith knew, she was on the ground, a bruise beginning to form on the tender pink flesh beneath her left eye. She wasn't scared, and she wasn't upset...she was angry and ashamed that she had allowed him to defile her in such an evil way. She would wait until that night, take her still-packed suitcase, and flee on the first flight to Seattle, hoping that closing her bank accounts and changing her address to a post office box would suffice to leave the mess that had become her life behind._

--

"I'm not going _anywhere_ without you," he said, wrapping his strong fingers around her wrists, and she could already feel the skin and muscle underneath it begin to bruise. She tried to wrench her arms away, but only proceeded to make it hurt more as he pulled on them simultaneously

With a violent thrash, she felt her head crack viciously against the pillar of the porch behind her, the resounding thud splintering out into the silent night, and everything around her subsequently began to swim. His face in front of her became a mix of red and blue, but as soon as it began to get blurry, it was gone, and the dark midnight sky replaced it.

"Get _off_ of her!" a growling voice said from somewhere to her right, and she hoped that it came from the person that had peeled her abusive husband away from her.

The sudden sound of knuckles meeting cheekbones jolted her a bit, and the scene in front of her became a little more clear.

Derek stood over the crumpled form of Simon, who was clutching his bloody face and teetering on the verge of consciousness.

Derek turned to her, all of the anger from the past weeks replaced with the loving and concerned expression she had grown so used to.

"Derek..." she managed to mumble, her eyes beginning to flutter closed as she tried her hardest to support herself against the column which had served her this blow.

"Oh my god Meredith..." he said, his voice scratched with the pure fear of her ever being injured at all, and the last thing she felt was his arms wrapped securely around her, and finally, she fell into a black abyss.


	4. Self Help

_Ok, so I swear to GOD I wrote this before Morgen used this in TWTO, Samson seriously has been played on my iTunes 126 times. So, yeah, I kinda love that song. Please **review**!!!!_ _Oh, and anyone who can tell me the artists that produced the song that each chapter is named for PM me! will get a special sneak preview. ;)_

Chapter 3

Self Help

_You are my sweetest downfall._

_I loved you first, I loved you first._

To her, everything was happening in slow motion as she slowly awakened, a myriad of colors and figures blending together above her in a confusing haze. The blindly bright, swirling lights cascading around her consciousness in a fusion of red and blue shapes reminded her distinctly of a warped fourth of July fireworks display - except it was the middle of February, and the morbid loneliness she had felt on fourth of July's past had been exonerated from her stream of thought and replaced with another set of soul-torturing emotions.

She was vaguely aware of being lifted into the ambulance and having someone climb into the small, moving hospital with her, as well as violently vomiting the contents of her stomach into a kidney-shaped dish, a result of her brain getting smashed against the inside of her skull. However, she was intensely aware when said person grasped tightly onto her hand and didn't let go until he was ready to personally make sure she had no serious injuries.

If she were in a better state of mind, she could have easily rattled off her symptoms and diagnosed herself, however, one of the side effects from this mans sudden forgiveness and unexpected protectiveness was...she couldn't remember exactly. Whatever it was, it hindered her from easily rattling off her symptoms and diagnosing herself.

"CT...MRI...concussion...and bleeding," were the only words that she heard in the rapid fire instructions he had spewed to an intern she struggled to recognize as soon as they entered the doors of the ER, the rest of the speech being meticulously ripped apart and lost between the ringing in her ears and the acute fatigue encompassing her consciousness at that moment in time, slipping her in between awake and slumber whenever it deemed it appropriate.

"D...Derek," she managed to stutter, her voice sounding shockingly feeble and jaded, even to her own ears.

"Meredith," he said clearly, his strong voice slicing through the fog around her and her brain, "I know you're tired," he continued, in a voice similar to the one she often used with patients, "But you might have a severe concussion. I need you to stay awake for me, ok?"

Despite the slightly patronizing tone that reminded her too strongly of the man she had just escaped, she gave him a weary nod, knowing he was only trying to make things easier on her.

Even so, this abrupt and strange switch from Derek hating her to Derek easily filling the supportive friend or was it boyfriend? role was screwing severely with her head.

For the past two weeks, she had been pining terribly for him, wishing only for a moment of his time, to explain what had happened, and how she had been too scared that he would see her as damaged goods to try and explain to him that she was only trying to leave that life behind. To leave Simon behind.

Now, she wasn't sure whether or not the familiar kindness that lilted in his heady and passionate voice was for forgiveness of her, or merely the care he felt for a strange patient.

She hoped it was the latter.

Lost in her thoughts, she became totally unaware of her surroundings, not even noticing as multiple scans and test took place, until a skilled pair of familiar hands gently wound themselves around her, picked her up out of the CT machine, and laid her softly back onto the rolling hospital bed.

"Am I...ok?" she breathed, her words slightly mixed and hesitant, unsure of how she should approach this new minefield that had burrowed itself in the belly of their souls.

The sigh that escaped his incredibly kissable lips blossomed out from the center of his chest, escaping in a worried and contemplative gust of air.

"Meredith..." he said, hesitating on her name, leaning precariously on the bars of her bed, the hard plastic embedded into the flesh of his forearms, "You have a concussion. It's not mild, but it isn't anything to get upset about," he said, and his carefully chosen words elicited a frown, stretching across her brow and mouth, "As long as you stay overnight for observation and can keep down plenty of fluids and some food, I should be ok to release you in the next day or two."

His words were carefully molded and precise with many years of practice of being a medical practitioner, the tone both lulling and comforting at the same time, but also the last thing she wanted to hear. For some reason, she had hoped that this incident had exonerated her of any wrong doing, clearly showing him that her actions were not her own, but those of a frightened woman trying to run away from a past that was still deeply embedded in the forefront of her memory. Somehow, they had not, and a steady shield remained over the mirage of carefully woven compassion.

She offered him only a simple nod, not trusting herself to say anything else without undoubtedly babbling until she made herself look like a total idiot, and she remained silent as he rolled her slowly down the linoleum halls and back into her hospital room. He carefully, meticulously, and professionally hooked her back up to her myriad of monitoring machines, an EKG to keep track of the organ she felt like didn't belong to her anymore, an IV feeding her chemicals through the veins that she felt were empty now.

He finished, his hand resting hesitantly longer on the flesh of her arm, the burning touch of his fingers suddenly unfamiliar and electrifying, even though it had been a main theme in her dreams for over two weeks now.

"Meredith," he breathed, her name cascading gently around the hollows of his mouth, a sound she had been aching for since the last time she had experienced it, "We need to talk..." he drifted off, his tone unsure and unsettling, not yet ready to understand what was happening.

Panic flooded through her, an icy feeling filling the veins that had been left empty by days on end of loneliness and desolate longing. A feeling she had felt before, an aching, familiar, sickening feeling suddenly came over her. The only thing she could sense now was the sudden, sharp pain splintering throughout her head, the throbbing over coming her until it was one, long, deep, beat, not unfamiliar to the resonating and echoing flatline of the heart monitor that was the last thing she heard before she succumbed yet again to an icy chasm.


	5. Until The End

_Ok, I apologize for this chapter being so utterly short, but it is so completely neccessary. Please **review**!_

Chapter 4

Until The End

A spinning vortex of beeping and shocking seemed to surround him as he futilely tried to calm her shaking and seizing form while simultaneously trying to restore the steady beating of her heart.

Finally, with one last desperate clutch at the scratchy, woolen, white sheets, Meredith's body at long last ceased all movement, the sudden stillness and silence a sickening rival in the stark contrast of the loose bedlam that had proceeded it.

She lay still.

--

He couldn't believe it. The thought could not penetrate his psyche. It was untrue, unreal. She was invincible. He would never live a day without her presence on this earth. To him, they would live together forever, one never going without the other. It was impossible to him, an asinine notion that had never entered his realm of being, a completely absurd waste of time he could spend with her. It wasn't something that had ever crossed his path of thought.

Meredith.

Dead.

No longer living.

No longer breathing. No longer speaking. No longer thinking or loving or crying or broken.

Meredith was dead.

Inexplicably, irreversibly, incredibly dead.

Every day that passed him now, every second that ticked by him in a whirlwind of lost time would taunt him with her absence. Every event in his life. Every surgery she would have performed by his side. Every child of theirs that wouldn't be born. Every anniversary, every birthday, every Thanksgiving, and every Christmas that they would not celebrate together would remind her of her timeless spirit. He would live until he was 100, without her.

Meredith was dead. And he was eternally without hope.

--

_Yeah, so...I just killed Meredith. **Review please.**_


	6. Not Too Late

Chapter 5

Not Too Late

He winced as the bitter liquid cascaded down the interior of his throat. It was a feeling he never quite got used to, despite his newfound addiction to the noxious substance. A small droplet of water fell off of the freshly washed glass and landed squarely on his somber charcoal suit.

The funeral had been beautiful. A solid black mass had come to mourn and pay their respects for the incredible woman that had graced their lives for such a short period of time.

There were many people there he didn't know, and a few he did. Old professors, college roommates, and even former patients wanted to attend the memorial service.

Besides the abundance of people that came to grieve, it was a small and simple ceremony, the duty of organizing having been bestowed upon him after it was realized that from the short time she had lived in Seattle, the relationship that had become strongest was theirs.

There were simple, clean, white flowers on either side of the shiny black casket with elegant gothic handles. Everything was just that - simple and clean. He thought that's what she would have liked.

She had died from an unexplainable ruptured aneurysm, unfeasible and catastrophic in its glory.

Since that night, nearly a week ago, he had begun to drown himself in his sorrows, the large bottle full of amber drunkenness being his only solace in the world.

He knew no other plausible way to mourn a person he had known so briefly, but had changed his life so monumentally and whom he had loved so deeply. All he wished is that he hadn't been so foolish, so quick to judge her, and so lost on the time that he could have spent learning more about her, as well as letting her know all of the ways he had feelings for her.

He blamed himself for her death. Wholly and completely.

If he hadn't been so obnoxiously judgmental.

If he hadn't been so stubbornly thickheaded.

If he had just taken the time to listen to her. To let her explain. To listen to his heart, and what he really wanted to do, rather than his head, and what he required himself to.

He would have been with her, in that car, on the ride home, in her front yard when she needed him the most. He could have prevented Simon from getting anywhere near her.

He could have saved her. He could have saved himself.

He chases down the morbid and regretful thought with a large gulp and an entire glass of scotch, a never-resting hand continuously refilling his glass.

He drinks himself into a stupor, until he achieves his goal and the world around him is just an ubiquitous blur of shapes, colors, and shadows, splintering awkwardly away from their sources and blossoming along in an endless spiral outwards into a darkly throbbing eternity, finding their final resting places in the belly of his petulant self-hatred.

Even though it was still bright and early in the afternoon, he himself found a resting place in the stiff, unforgiving surface of his kitchen table, simply laying his head down and drifting off into a happy state of numbness.

--

The cocoon he woke up in was infinitely more comfortable than the area he had fallen asleep against, the uncomfortable wood of his small chairs replaced by the warping feeling of the relaxing bed beneath him and the warm comforter above him.

He must have stumbled into his bedroom sometime during the night, and completely slept off his hangover, since it seemed that downing nearly an entire bottle of scotch had no after effect on him.

His eyes remained welded shut, not willing to face the bright sunlight of the outside world quite yet. However, a scent lingered around him...a familiar scent, at that. A woman's smell that he hadn't experienced in a week. And as far as he knew, he didn't wear Ralph Lauren perfume.

A ringing sound brought him out of his sudden suspicious mood, and he rolled over onto his stomach, groaning about the shrill noise ripping him from a casual memory he had been allowing himself to slip into.

"Who is calling at this hour?" he mumbled to no one in particular, seeing as his trailer and the healthy ten miles around him was devoid of other society, and he was unappreciative of the other person's need to speak to him at what he assumed was the asscrack of dawn.

"Wrong number."

His eyes snapped open, staring bewilderedly at her gloriously alive face, full of life and a beauty he had never quite found commonplace.

He looked around, everything was exactly the same - the muted brown and red color scheme of her bedroom, the barely cracked drapes, the slightly crooked lampshade on her empty bedside table.

His eyes rested once more on her form, curled up neatly into the wicker chair crooked off to the side from her wall, her expression casually anxious, as though he was staring straight into her soul.

"What?" she said strangely, his sudden wondering look startling her safely kept secrets.

It had all been a dream.

--

_Yeah. I just did that. Please **review**!!!!_


	7. Echo

_So, this is the end. End of the road. Over. First story I've ever completed. So please, for my sake, **review**. Thank you soooo much for your continued support. Sorry about the mix-ups with updates today, I did a lot of shifting around and updating. Also, the Author's Note was removed so I could neatly continue to post the rest of the story. Thanks again!_

Chapter 6

Echo

_Your movements echo that I've seen the real thing..._

All Derek could remember about the incredibly horrible dream he had experienced the night before was that in it, Meredith had died, and he had never felt so scared in his life.

A strange thing was happening to him, though. All day, he felt as though he had done all of this before. He knew what was going to be said during the syphilis meeting, and he knew that when the chief came to him, he would be operating on his mentor in a few hours time. Now, he felt as though something insanely terrible was going to happen.

"Long day," he said as she walked up, his tiredness too intense to really form any more words than those said, and ignoring the odd fussiness running its course through his veins, blaming it on fatigue.

"Yeah," she said in agreement, her happiness to see him alone, (almost) outside of work beaming off of her face in the form of a small smirk.

"Somewhere out there is a steak with your name on it," he continued, a smirk of his own playing across his handsome features, "And maybe a bottle of wine."

"This is why I keep you around," she teased, as though everytime she saw him, a small flurry of breathlessness didn't erupt in the pit of her stomach.

"So we need to talk," he said heavily as he finished packing up his things.

"Wine first, talk later."

"Are you trying to get me drunk and take advantage of me?" he said, mock concern and shock raising in his voice.

She giggled, the warm noise making him feel heady and as though everything around him was swimming, except for her.

"I think I like this rules thing," she said, and the agreement in his happy smile could not have been more profound if he had shouted it from the rooftops.

Suddenly, she felt the blood freeze in her veins and the breath clutch in her throat as she saw the head full of red hair cross the lobby, attached to the tall, well-dressed body.

"Oh my god," she breathed, her voice a hoarse whisper, "Simon. _What_ are you doing here?"

_**The End.**_

--

_Yeah, so I kind of just left it there. But I love it._

_Thank you so much, guys. Despite the problems I had with some readers, 99.9 of you have been wonderful throughout. You're all glorious people, and I truly, deeply appreciate all of your kind words._

_I'd like to acknowledge, also, the titles from this story._

_The entire fic and **prologue** were named for a song, "Colorblind," by the Counting Crows._

_Chapter 1: Choux Pastry Heart by Corinne Bailey Rae_

_Chapter 2: Shelter From The Storm by Bob Dylan_

_Chapter 3: Self Help by Turin Brakes_

_Chapter 4:_ _Until the End by Norah Jones_

_Chapter 5: Not Too Late by Norah Jones_

_Chapter 6: Echo by The Hush Sound_

_Thanks again, guys. This has been really great._

_Also, I'm seriously considering posting something...it's not quite a sequel, it's more like an alternate ending, but a different fic._

_Anyways, tell me what you think about that idea._

_Thank you!_


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